Classification and Organization in a School System

This chapter uses Shanghai secondary education to show how ordinary people became usable and unreliable intellectuals under Chinese Communist rule during the 1950s, and how the process affected workplace culture and state-society relations. Intense domination by officially appointed Communist Party cadres in the school system led to an abundance of texts, signs, and cues that cast other faculty and staff members as intellectuals, as claimed in official discourse. Persistent surveillance and record keeping helped the state divide these “intellectuals” into subtypes for control and management purposes. The chapter shows that the generally well-educated cadres promoted themselves as dependable revolutionaries at the expense of their colleagues, while the latter employed various tactics and strategies to cope with the domination and stigmatization. The chapter suggests that establishments with “intellectuals” in the workforce were frequently a divided and disaffected workplace.